Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

ManyWorlds
, August 1, 2003. 
12.
For more information, see J. J. Emerson et al., "Extensive Gene Traffic on the Mammalian X Chromosome," 
Science 303.5657 (January 23, 2004): 537–40, http://www3.uta.edu/faculty/betran/science2004.pdf; Nicholas 
Wade, "Y Chromosome Depends on Itself to Survive," 
New York Times
, June 19, 2003; and Bruce T. Lahn 
and David C. Page, "Four Evolutionary Strata on the Human X Chromosome," 
Science
286.5441 (October 29, 
1999): 964–67, http://inside.wi.mit.edu/page/Site/Page%20PDFs/Lahn_and_Page_strata_1999.pdf. 
Interestingly, the second X chromosome in girls is turned off in a process called X inactivation so that the 
genes on only one X chromosome are expressed. Research has shown that the X chromosome from the father 
is turned off in some cells and the X chromosome from the mother in other cells. 
13.
Human Genome Project, "Insights Learned from the Sequence," 
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/journals/insights.html. Even though the human 
genome has been sequenced, most of it does not code for proteins (the so-called junk DNA), so researchers are 
still debating how many genes will be identified among the three billion base pairs in human DNA. Current 
estimates suggest less than thirty thousand, though during the Human Genome Project estimates ranged as 
high as one hundred thousand. See "How Many Genes Are in the Human Genome?" 
(http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/genenumber.shtml) and Elizabeth Pennisi, "A 
Low Number Wins the GeneSweep Pool," 
Science
300.5625 (June 6, 2003): 1484. 
14.
Niles Eldredge and the late Stephen Jay Gould proposed this theory in 1972 (N. Eldredge and S. J. Gould, 
"Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism," in T. J. M. Schopf, ed., 
Models in 
Paleobiology
[San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper], pp. 82–115). It has sparked heated discussions among 
paleontoloNOTES 511 gists and evolutionary biologists ever since, though it has gradually gained acceptance. 
According to this theory, millions of years may pass with species in relative stability. This stasis is then 
followed by a burst of change, resulting in new species and the extinction of old (called a "turnover pulse" by 
Elisabeth Vrba). The effect is ecosystemwide, affecting many unrelated species. Eldredge and Gould's 
proposed pattern required a new perspective: "For no bias can be more constricting than invisibility—and 

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stasis, inevitably read as absence of evolution, had always been treated as a non-subject. How odd, though, to 
define the most common of all palaeontological phenomena as beyond interest or notice!" S. J. Gould and N. 
Eldredge, "Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age," Nature 366 (November 18, 1993): 223–27. 
See also K. Sneppen et al., "Evolution As a Self-Organized Critical Phenomenon," 
Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences
92.11 (May 23, 1995): 5209–13; Elisabeth S. Vrba, "Environment and 
Evolution: Alternative Causes of the Temporal Distribution of Evolutionary Events," South African Journal of 
Science 81 (1985): 229–36. 
15.
As I will discuss in chapter 6, if the speed of light is not a fundamental limit to rapid transmission of 
information to remote portions of the universe, then intelligence and computation will continue to expand 
exponentially until they saturate the potential of matter and energy to support computation throughout the 
entire universe. 
16.
Biological evolution continues to be of relevance to humans, however, in that disease processes such as cancer 
and viral diseases use evolution against us (that is, cancer cells and viruses evolve to counteract specific 
countermeasures such as chemotherapy drugs and antiviral medications respectively). But we can use our 
human intelligence to outwit the intelligence of biological evolution by attacking disease processes at 
sufficiently fundamental levels and by using "cocktail" approaches that attack a disease in several orthogonal 
(independent) ways at once. 
17.
Andrew Odlyzko, "Internet Pricing and the History of Communications," AT&T Labs Research, revised 
version February 8, 2001, http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/history.communications1b.pdf. 
18.
Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey, June 2004, 
http://www.ctia.orglresearch_statistics/index.cfm/AID/l0030. 
19.
Electricity, telephone, radio, television, mobile phones: FCC, 
www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Notices/2000/fc00057a.xls. Home computers and Internet use: Eric 
C. Newburger, U.S.Census Bureau, "Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August 2000" 
(September 2001), http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf. See also "The Millennium Notebook,"